Burn
by Clan Dragoodle
Summary: Tifa Lockhart burns for Aeris Gainsborough, but it sears the flesh and leaves pink scars.


_When the light's turning down, they don't know what they heard  
Strike the match, play it loud, giving love to the world  
We'll be raising our hands, shining up to the sky.  
'Cause we got the fire  
And we're gonna let it burn  
_  
_Burn _by Ellie Goulding

* * *

Tifa Lockhart wishes she could remember to forget it all.

She idly traces the scar as she stares into the bathroom mirror. People used to tell her she was pretty, a classic beauty. She dunks her head under the running faucet. The water strings with cold, helping to bite away at the thoughts.

Her mother had an oval face with wide, bright, eyes set in dark lashes. They were brown, freckled around the iris with gold, rimmed with a shade closer to purple.

She turns her head to fill her ear with the rush of water.

Her smile had been dazzling, accentuated by a natural pout under a straight nose. Imperial Red was the name of her Lipstick. Tifa wore the same shade once a year.

She sets her forehead to the porcelain, causing the sink to spray on the floor.

Nibleheim summers would tan a natural blush across her mother's high cheekbones, the bridge of her nose pinched with seasonal freckles; her father used to tease.

His strong jaw is twisted and broken, laying bloodied in the dirt. Normally sunken eyes are swollen and gouged, the skull fractured to an extent that the face tumbles in on itself. A dark liquid is stained on his upper lip. He'd shaved that morning.

She could still smell the menthol.

The adjacent alley is beginning to wake by the time she rights herself. The unmistakable hum of the morning train shakes the apartment; the picture of her and Marlene rattles in the hallway.

It'll pass.

Her mother stares at her from the mirror before Tifa opens the medicine cabinet and finds the bottle hidden in the back of the miscellaneous. Two in the morning – before Barret comes home – two after lunch – before Biggs needs the bathroom – and three in the evening, before the mission.

She swallows the pills dry.

The scar is an agitated red when she closes the cabinet. She follows the thin marred flesh between her breasts with her eyes, pulling the cabinet door ajar to study the end of the seam.

The picture in the hall rattles again as the second train passes. Tifa snaps the cabinet shut, averting her gaze, and heads for the stairs.

It's still early, the rest of the doors are shut – save for Marlene's at the end of the hall, lest the boogieman find her in the night. Nonetheless, Tifa waits till she's past the bottom step before she starts lacing her boots. Distantly, the bedsprings give as Wedge turns over.

"You're gonna be late," Barret says from the corner.

Her hair is still wet as she gathers it in elastic, throwing the majority over her shoulder. "I'll take a shortcut." She stands, acknowledging the man with a nod. "How was she?"

Barret is nursing a mug with his good hand behind the bar. His prosthetic lays on the counter, partly disassembled for cleaning and storage. Tifa knows it'll be kept by the bat under the bar before Marlene wakes.

"She got in a fight-"

"With the Turks?"

"With her mom."

They share a small smile. "So, same-old-same-old?" Tifa asks.

"They've posted a stray. He parks on the East side." Barrett takes a drink. "They haven't noticed us yet. Keep yer distance and you'll be fine."

"Infantry or Turk?"

She slips around him to pull at the thread of her gloves from above the refrigerator. It's a methodical assemblage of straps and buckles in seconds. The leather seals around her scarred forearms and cracks as she flexes.

"Turk."

Tifa strikes the air twice. "Anything else?" She starts for the door.

"Be careful, Tifa."

"Sleep well, Barret." She gives another smile before exiting the bar in a running stride.

The morning is muggier than usual; the news reported that one of the treatment plants had closed due to the security scares. She strains a breath around the air, flexing her core, and tries to sprint through the ache.

Most of the street lamps are still dark, the emergency lights on the support pillars casting a tinted haze over the slums. Had she not run this route regularly, she undoubtedly would have tripped when the road traded asphalt for dirt.

A leaving gentlemen observes her with a small bow of his head as she runs by. He wears the navy jumpsuit of a Reactor Operator, his shoulders dusted with clumps of his fallen hair.

He visited the bar on Mondays and ordered the same drink every time. She'd watch him turn sick and shallow over the rim of the glass, his body deteriorating with each work shift. He never caused any trouble, always polite, always tipped well. Eventually, she refused to take his Gil.

"Spend it on your girls," Tifa had said.

They died in the Reactor Five raid; visiting the facility with their school.

Tifa pushes past the Sector Gate with a burst of speed. Her muscles start to burn, but she's no stranger to heat, pushing harder. The pills take care of the edge.

Sector Six is poorer than most, a tent city constructed with the scrap metal that ran off the train yard. The road is bordered by dilapidated shacks, stacked haphazardly some twenty feet in places. She veers left, suddenly trading the dirt road for tin, picking a path through her climb in impressive bounds and leaps as she mounts the structures.

At the crest, the wreckage meets a worn Sector Five divider that sections off an abandoned playground. The fence is easy enough to maneuver with a short ten-foot drop that Tifa absorbs in a roll before she uprights in pace.

Sector Five, like Six, is still one of the worse off parts of Midgar, but bad agricultural run-off had turned this particular bed of soil dead. In effect, most of the residents had left, crowding the surrounding slums but opening long stretches of barren lots. Not even the train stopped in Five anymore.

But where she is headed, like herself, doesn't respect the limitations ShinRa drew in the dirt.

She makes a point to avoid the East plaza. Instead, Tifa hops a neighbor's fence, and ducks into the back garden, already making out the tell-tale bent stalks of Barret's weight on the flowers. The streetlamps are just humming to life by the time she's settled on her belly on the dirt knoll, hidden in a bed of daffodils.

The vantage point overlooks a handsome Tudor tucked in the furthest back reach of the Sector. She'd guessed it'd been built by the owner before the rest of the slum. A few buildings like it still stood in Seven; most were remnants of the villages before the erecting of the ShinRa tower.

The windows are still dark.

Tifa absently pulls one of the stalks up to chew on. She'd cleared out a small section by now, the soil overturned by the flowers' uprooted bulbs. It'd been just shy two weeks of this routine:

Watching her.

The upstairs bedroom's light flicks on. The curtains are closed, but their fabric merely silhouettes the figure inside. Tifa hunches down a little more in the dirt as the shadow approaches the window. The lavender drapes are drawn to reveal a slip of a girl with long brown hair and a heart-shaped face.

She's young, probably around Tifa's age, wearing a thin robe that she's let open in the front to expose the long stretch of navel. In the beginning, Tifa had shied away from these moments out of politeness – but today, Tifa couldn't look in the mirror.

She would feel guilty later.

Her name is Aeris Gainsborough, and she appeared to be just a simple merchant – flowers – with a shoddy shop a few neighborhoods over. She lives with her mother who still wore a wedding band but only entertained a collection of older women who, Tifa assumed, populated a book club. And the only time Aeris left home was to either tend to her shop, or water a collection of flowerbeds at a local abandoned church.

Not exactly the most _exciting _life.

But ShinRa Munitions Manufacturer felt the need to post a security detail anyway.

Initially, Jessie had intercepted the message via frequency. None of them were trained spies, it was by fanciful luck that they had stumbled across the message at all while the President was out to sea in the North; Morse code, much easier to pick up and translate than the encrypted signals between Reactors. It gave them a single address, intended for ShinRa's Science Department.

And so, here she was.

Tifa rolls the plant stalk between her teeth and steeples her fingers under her chin for support, settling into her lying position. Aeris always rose when the steam clock chimed six times with a brass shrill. She'd read, usually seated at the window that faced the back garden, then dress for work closer to seven.

Her favorite color was blue, a _brilliant _blue, like the painted frame of her vanity. She didn't like the taste of coffee, but she kept small cups of the beans on the corner of her nightstand anyway. And she only opened her window when the irrigation system watered the soil.

But today the girl only stands at the glass. From the distance, Tifa can't be sure – but, she looks…sad. Aeris lulls her head into her shoulder, her drawn hand obscuring the movement of her lips. Tifa doesn't judge; she talks to herself too.

Attentively, Aeris snaps her head back straight, staring at Tifa's hiding place among the roots. She flattens her chin to the ground, assuring herself that between the bushel of flowers and arching adjacent oak, she'd remained undetected.

Aeris Gainsborough makes a point to close her robe.

There's a loud roar as the train rounds the divider track above, coughing thick smoke down over the house, before it thunders through towards Sector Six. The clock tower whistles seven times. Aeris draws the curtains closed again, her shadow walking out of pane.

Tifa takes her chance to edge closer to the property. Taking great care to sidestep any of the windows, she crouches against the backside of the house, moving towards the kitchen. Aeris' mother – Elmyra – can be heard setting the kettle.

Tifa settles in the dirt aside the backdoor.

"Drink something warm. It's cold out there," Elmyra says. There's the small _tink_ of glass. "Did you sleep well?"

"I'm going to be late," is Aeris' reply.

Tifa can imagine Elmyra's face.

There's a rustle of fabric and slide of a zipper. "I'm sorry, mom," Aeris says softly. "But I'll be okay, I promise."

The quick patter of feet on wood before the tell-tale clap of an embrace. A hug.

"Hey," Aeris chimes, "I'll see you for dinner."

As steps echo towards the front of the house, Tifa sits up on her toes. After the click of the door, she counts several seconds before skirting the edge of the property and peering over to see a woman in pink disappearing around the bend. There's a muffled sob from inside the house.

Aeris Gainsborough doesn't get far before a dark car with government plates slowly pulls beside her. Tifa is several lengths back, having spotted the vehicle in advance, and ducked down an alley. It's a newer model with a sleek onyx finish and chrome rims.

Aeris observes the car with annoyance, squaring off with the driver side door and crossing her arms. "Why not just pick me up from the front door? We're barely off the porch," the words are teasing, but Tifa knows enough to distinguish the anger as very real in Aeris' tone.

"That would upset your mother," is the reply between layers of a thick Wutai accent.

"You already upset her," snaps Aeris.

"Get in the car," echoes another voice. Midgarian, lighter. The back door swings open and there's a distinct click of a gun. "_Now_."

Tifa eases forward on her toes, slides her leg back, and begins to calculate the speed it'll take to make the fence across the road. She knows it's a seven foot drop off the other side into gravel, and a good two block sprint back towards the playground. She begins to prepare her breathing.

Aeris laughs once. "You won't shoot me, _I'm much too valuable_," she gives a flippant look to the back seat. "Worth more than your life."

The malice is practiced and rehearsed in the mirror, but it reads an obvious bluff on her lips. She sets her hands on her hips, ruffling her skirt.

The man that gets from the car is a lanky redhead trimmed in a blue suit. His shirt is untucked, but his gun is also un-holstered, and he doesn't skip a step before forcing the barrel between Aeris' lips. It's a smooth, practiced, and rehearsed motion and reads much too precise for a bluff.

He grins. "He won't shoot you, but you're rolling some pretty dice to take a chance with me." He twists the dark barrel further back into her throat; Aeris gags. "Now, get in the car."

He forces the woman headfirst into the back seat, wiping the tip of his weapon on her jacket before getting in behind her. The door closes with the _click _of the lock.

Tifa waits till the car is turning the corner onto Main Street before she bolts from the alley, vaulting her mental path over the across fence, and cutting through the Sector. There's only one gate on this side of Midgar that leads to the upper plates: a backdoor metal slate _conveniently _manufactured in Corneo's front yard.

_ShinRa lapdog_, Tifa thinks bitterly as she turns into the abandoned playground. She's up the faded periwinkle elephant slide in three strides, shoving off with enough force to strike the dividing wall of the Sectors with her chest. She gasps around a breath, heaving herself upwards onto the tin roofs of Six's tent city.

Distantly, she can hear the smooth purr of the Mako powered engine, the car pulling down the road in the sticky slap of rubber on asphalt. She doesn't have time to think as she rights herself, looking down at the road as the government vehicle begins to pass.

It's a good fifteen – possibly _twenty _foot drop – Tifa considers as she's already airborne, having taken a running start. She braces across her chest and relaxes her body in the freefall, trying to control her trajectory.

For one, terrifying, moment, she is falling off the side of a mountain again.

Then she hits the windshield. The glass gives immediately, splintering in a thousand pieces with a loud _crack,_ as she rolls off the hood of the car and to the road. Thankfully, the car curves left, smashing into a wrought lamp post and crumpling in a hiss of steam.

All is still as the bronze clock chimes eight times.

Tifa scrambles to her feet, biting back the pain as her left leg gives out. She kneels, examining the large piece of glass cut into the back of her calf. There's no hesitation as she takes the end of the piece and pulls it from the muscle, the blood soaking in her sock.

From the corner of her eyes, she sees a curtain pulled shut and the porch lights dimmed. Somewhere, a dog barks. She's about to touch the handle of the backdoor when it suddenly opens, Aeris stumbling into her with enough force to knock Tifa back to the ground.

Tifa hisses in pain, bracing back on her hands, and shields her face to the side with her dark hair. From the cut of her bangs she can make out the toe of Aeris' boot scuffed a darker shade of tobacco.

Aeris shifts her weight, but says nothing.

There's a guttural croak from the dark car, the rub of fabric on leather, and the fumble of the driver's side door. The metal is prodded open, weakly – _twice_ – before it swings on its hinge with a screech. The man at the wheel has dark hair and fair skin with angled features. The left side of his face is already turning purple in a bruise.

Tifa gets to her feet, without looking at Aeris, and rips the Turk from the destroyed vehicle, sending him rolling on the pavement. He flops onto his back with a strained sigh and pulls his arms over his face for protection. Tifa is nudging along his frame with the steel toe of her boot, her back to Aeris as the woman in pink stands motionless beside the crash.

The faint _tink _of metal on metal has Tifa kneel to the injured man and remove the hidden gun in the side pocket of his jacket. She pulls the block back, setting a bullet in the chamber before towering above the stock-still form.

It's only as Tifa gets sight down the barrel between his eyes that Aeris says something:

"Don't kill him."

Tifa freezes, tensing up, before turning over her shoulder at Aeris. This is the first time their eyes touch, and – Tifa realizes – the first time Aeris actually looks at her. Her heart drops painfully into her stomach.

"Please," Aeris says again, taking a step.

Tifa skirts away, sidestepping the Turk's skull, but does not lower the gun.

They hold their gaze, Aeris drawing her hand back to her chest defensively and searching with green eyes. This close, Tifa can count the speckles of gold around the iris.

She drops the gun in a clatter that causes Aeris to make a small noise and turns to run; pushing through the pain. Tifa doesn't look back, but she can hear the familiar echo of Aeris' boots fading the opposite direction.

Tifa doesn't ease up on her pace until her boot is stained red and her vision touched black in the corners. She's careless with her breaths, hobbling up the dilapidated steps of _The Seventh Heaven_ before tripping and crashing through the front door. She hits the wooden floor hard enough to cause Marlene to cry.

"Holy shit," Biggs says, somewhere above Tifa. She can make out his dirty socks approaching.

Marlene is standing at the bottom step, her dark brown eyes puffed red with tears as she huffs around her panic. Her pink, unicorn, nightgown is one size too big, swallowing her tiny frame. Large black hands hoist her from Tifa's vision, Barret's voice commanding:

"Get her inside and close the fucking door."

The pills are wearing off; Tifa's head is beginning to cloud as she's dragged across the floor. She can feel the heat of the flames on her leg, searing the flesh as they scream above her. Her ears are ringing.

She gags on the bile in her throat.

"Tifa," Jessie's voice is muffled and distant. "Hang on."

Tifa comes to a few minutes later, the tug of a needle through flesh pulling her from unconsciousness. They'd moved her from the floor to one of the tables, wet rags pressed against the slope of her neck and forehead. Jessie is seated at the foot of the table, stitching her leg back together.

Her ginger hair is still matted with sleep, grey eyes rimmed with dark rings. The younger girl observes Tifa with a small smile and nod.

"Hey Barret," Jessie looks past Tifa's head, towards the stairs, "she's come around."

"What the hell happened?" booms Barret. He's out of her sightline, but Tifa can feel the vibration of his steps through the table.

She closes her eyes, the back of her eyelids dyed orange. She opens them instantly. "Turks. They finally made a move to take the girl. I jumped onto their car," she hisses as Jessie catches the thread once. "She escaped. I don't think they saw me."

Barret enters her vision, looming above with a hard-set jaw. His eyes are narrowed and the skin is gathered between his brows. "You don't _think _they saw you? _Are you out of your fucking mind_?" He strikes the table with his fist.

Jessie shoots a dirty look.

"You could have been fucking killed," he continues, spitting the words down at her face. "_Worse_. You could have been _captured_ – _for what_? A girl?" He paces back from the table; Tifa can hear the scrape of his callouses against the stubble of his chin.

"Bunch of fucking cowboys in this team."

Tifa sits up slowly. The room spins violently and she chokes, gripping her skull. She hadn't noticed Biggs seated to her right; he pats her back gingerly.

He looks pale, real fear written in his dark eyes as he looks her over. The wary expression ages him ten years, hiding his boyish features in panic. "Scared us," he says weakly.

She tries her best smile. He frowns back.

"We need to move her," Tifa finally says, getting her breath around the words. The room has stopped turning. "We don't have any time – get Cloud-"

"Like hell," Barret cuts through her words with an even tone. "You're not going anywhere, Rodeo. I say we cut our losses, we've been at this for weeks and we don't know a damn thing about this girl to be stickin' our necks into Truk target practice."

Tifa slams her fist into the table this time, silencing Barret at once. "She's important to them; which makes her important to me."

_That wasn't right_, she thinks, taking shallow breaths and trying to focus on Marlene's school portrait across the room. Biggs has already used the bathroom, his short, dark, hair wet; she can't help the tick of her eyes upstairs to the bathroom door. The orange burns the back of her eyelids again.

"What if she knows something Barret, something _important_," Tifa tries again. She focuses on his black eyes. "She's the only lead we've had in months, we have to do something."

Jessie begins to wrap Tifa's leg, keeping her expression sheathed in long lashes. Biggs, likewise, is fiddling with his hands in his lap, his mouth drawn in a tight line. Barret sighs.

"Take the new guy-"

"Cloud," Tifa interjects.

Barret levels her with a look that makes her flinch. "Cloud," the name is spat between his teeth. "Take him with you. Get the girl and get back here within the hour or I'm coming out after you, guns blazing."

And he'll shoot.

Barret ends the discussion by excusing himself upstairs to Marlene's room. Jessie doesn't lift her eyes until the door is shut with a click. She and Biggs exchange a look that Tifa can't decipher.

"Well," Jessie begins, "you're all patched up and ready to go. Should probably eat something and get some water though, you lost a lot of blood."

Tifa swings her legs off the table, standing with some difficulty. Biggs grabs at her arm to steady her.

"I'll get some water upstairs, I want to change out of these clothes." Tifa touches his fingers lightly, thanking him wordlessly with a smile. "Can you wake Cloud, Biggs?"

He exchanges the same look to Jessie again in a brief instant, but nods, and removes himself to the spare room behind the bar. Tifa looks expectantly at Jessie, the girl shrinking under the inspection.

"I'll get you something to eat," she finally says, scurrying the way Biggs had gone.

Only without an audience does Tifa begin the painful climb to the bathroom. She has to stop twice and grapple to the stair rail, but she makes it, nudging the door open with the toe of her boot. The cabinet is open, the mirror facing the wall, and Biggs tooth brush – with toothpaste still on it – is absently set to the side.

Tifa secures the door closed before clumsily fumbling through for her bottle. It's where she left it, hidden in the back, and it's a practiced motion as she swallows a handful – _three_, for the leg.

_Just the leg_, she thinks, laughing bitterly.

She closes the cabinet, her reflection a mess of dirt and grime. Her hair is tangled, some stray shards of glass catching the above pendent light. She takes care to remove them, pulling her dark hair straight with Jessie's comb.

Her clothes are left in a heap on the tiled floor with her boots. She doesn't remove the gloves before crossing the hallway – nude – into her room. There are no eyes to comment, so she leaves her door ajar, finding exactly the article of clothing she wants, before returning to the bathroom.

Only when the blue sundress is smoothed across her frame does she begin to remove the braces and leather around her arms. The edge of her pain ebbing out as her medication begins to dull her senses. Her fingers can barely tell the upraised flesh of the burns along the blade of her forearm.

She follows the seam of ruined skin by memory.

Tifa straightens in the mirror, flicking her head to get her bangs to set correctly. She tucks some strands behind her ear, turning her jaw to admire the unmarred complexion. Vanity was never her vice, but she doesn't want to be Tifa Lockhart right now.

Opening the cabinet, she finds a single teardrop earing and thin gold tube. It takes her two train passes before she gets the earing through. Less to apply the lipstick – Imperial red – around her mouth.

Wedge told her once that it brought out her eyes.

A knock at the door causes Tifa's hand to smear her work in the corner.

"Are you ready?" Cloud's voice. Monotonous and even.

Tifa wets her thumb before pulling it over the mistake, wiping the stain away cleanly. She puckers her lips twice to even the color. "Yes," she says to her reflection. "I'm ready."

Her mother nods back at her.

* * *

**My first story was called Of Ribbons and Gauntlets. Mona Lisa and Black Dahlia are respective extensions of that plot line. This story, is my first, revived. Essentially, it is a novelization of Mona Lisa. I'm not sure why it came to me again, but I guess it's a story I've been waiting to tell for a long time and it comes easy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have dreaming it up. Feedback is welcome and appreciated, as usual. Thank you. **


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